Empire Live Roast with Special Guest Jason Levin

Patrick here from Community Empire, take 2 with the live roast section. Um, hopefully I can get a thumbs up now on the sound. Um, Scotty, am I good? Wave at me, let me know I'm good. Yeah, I got you. Thanks, brother. Thanks, team. So, um, inside Community Empire, we have creators, builders, uh, people who are building things with audience, right? Taking their people, creating momentum around a, around a topic, um, and then turning that into a cash-flowing empire. It sounds crazy, but we see it every day from people who are building just startups on the side, whether it's an AI project with that Gummi Search and what we see with Fed, or if it's someone who's doing something more people-intense, right? Working with software or working actually hands-on in like real businesses. People who are VCs who are looking to optimize their companies and their holding company. We have people inside Empire who are launching courses and classes and people who are even building paid communities as well. The heart of it all is the audience community product playbook, uh, and the whole point of this course and what we do inside Empire is figuring out how business can unlock the power of their people. And so we've been doing it for years. I myself have been running communities for over 20 years, um, 7 figures worth of revenue. It's been a ton of fun. And the goal here today is to take some of the ideas that are coming in and help you through a roast unblock some of the challenges that you've had around audience community product. But before we get started, we've got a special guest today who I am going to invite to the studio. We have Jason Levin here, meme lord in residence. He's already been inside Community Empire. He's presented to us before. It's an opportunity for us to hear a little bit more. So Jason, check that setup for you and see if you can get that link to come on stage. I'll see you pop up in a second. Um, the reason why we invited Jason today was because, uh, what's up everyone? And while I'm, while I'm chatting, tell us where you're, where you're texting in from. Where's everybody from? Rick Franco, uh, The Thought Alchemist, best name ever. If your location isn't pseudonymous, let us know. Um, be great to hear where everyone's from. Uh, the reason why we're inviting, um, we've had Jason come and, uh, join us here today is to learn about how he launched, um, his product. Um, it was really like we saw it happen real time on X because we're, uh, following on each other, but I want to hear all about it. So, uh, with that, Jason, let me add you to the stage as well. What's up? How are you?

Good, man, good. Can you hear me all right?

Yep, we got you totally fine. No worries. All right, all right, sweet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So remember, I saw, I saw your tweet was like, I just quit my job and I'm launching this product. And then as I'm following along, the notifications are rolling in and it's like, sign up, sign up, sign up. Like, I love seeing the screenshots from Slack notifications. Yeah, wild.

So what happened?

Break it down.

Absolutely crazy. Um, so I was head of growth at Product Hunt for the last 9 months or so, and on the side I had been growing a daily meme newsletter. Um, so I literally followed Greg's ACP funnel, uh, to the T. Uh, I worked with Greg actually at Late Checkout a few years ago, and, and, uh, he's been a huge mentor for me. And so, you know, on the side, I was building this meme newsletter. It was $6.9K a month, and I was getting, you know, a bunch of subscribers, like all the new viral trending memes, right? And then I was like, you know, screw it, I'm going to build a meme editor too, where people could actually use the trending memes and then go edit them. And I actually had just finished that, and it was very early on. And realized like, all right, it's time to leave, time to do my thing. I was at Product Hunt and realized that the opportunity cost of staying there was too high and I had built something really cool. And so now full-time making memes and making software for meme lords.

So it's pretty fun. Amazing. Well, I think what people don't know, like it looks like, oh hey, I just had this job at Product Hunt and left. What people don't necessarily know, because we connected early, just how much you've been grinding and testing stuff out. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, talk a little bit about that because I think the journey is so, so critical.

Yeah, yeah. So I've been making stuff on the internet since I was 11 or 12, posting YouTube videos, doing whatever, um, but really started picking up traction when I started my blog Cyber Patterns. Um, so I've been writing that 150 weeks straight. And I have a private community there, you know, a paid community, again, inspired by Greg. And, you know, in that community actually is where I learned what people needed. You know, exactly ACP funnel. It's where, you know, you go from the audience on Twitter to the community, you find out the problems and you build the product. And so the problem that people kept asking me for, can we have a group chat for new viral memes? Like, how do you find all this stuff? And I was like, dude, I just like, I'm online all the time. Like, I don't know what to tell you. Like, that's how I find it. And then I was like, oh my God, AI, no code. I could just use AI to, you know, pull memes, compare them, find the viral ones that repeat again and again, and then deliver it instead of just in a community channel. Now deliver it at scale. And so I literally got the idea for my startup, which I'm now full-time on, you know, and profitable and doing my thing. From my community, right? And so, um, the community, uh, gave me this idea and, uh, and, and people are loving it. And you can 100% bet that all the early customers were from my paid community, right? Um, and so thankfully, like, you know, I've— when I was younger, I tried launching so many startups, so many projects, but I didn't have an audience or anything. I didn't have a community. And so I would just be launching it to no one. And so now, you know, in the first day of launching, right, it's already— you're in the first few weeks, now months, it's already doing thousands of monthly revenue. You know, but behind that, right, is 2, 3 years of writing a blog, growing a community, and then like 5 to 7 years of like not doing that and failing again and again. So Yeah, I— the ACP funnel really works. I, I wrote up a whole post about how I, how I implemented it myself, and I'm very grateful that, uh, that Greg kind of, um, coined the term and made it simple for everybody to understand because it's helped me a lot.

Amazing. Well, let's drop a link to what you made in the chat, please, so we can— so people can find it and see it, and we'll share it afterwards as well. I think, you know, one Yeah, yeah, no, no, yeah, it's right there.

So it is a SaaS specifically for meme marketers. It's currently only $6.99 per month, um, and you get a daily email with all the new viral memes, and then you get an editor as well. Um, happy to like share my screen or anything if you want to see how it works. Um, but yeah, here, let me see if, uh, present—

pull it up, pull it up. I think memes, when you came and presented to us, I think one of the best parts about it was letting people— like, memes are a place where people can play. And I think so much about growth and learning is, is just playing. And when you start thinking about writing and what's my tone, memes let anybody play the game. And so I think this is a big online—

you see right now, okay, I don't see it yet here.

I'll add it to the stage.

Hold on.

Oh, there we go, there we go.

So you can see, right, uh, this is the editor, uh, right here. And then on the left side, you have all the newest trending memes. So we update these using AI and, uh, you know, humans as well, update it multiple times every day. Um, so if I want to, you know, add this in here, I can just do that. Um, if I want to, uh, do AI removal, I could do one-click AI background removal, which is pretty sick, right? Um, and then new text, I could change the colors, add shapes, draw, do whatever. Um, so what's different as well is we actually have all the classics here that you know and love from the world. But we also have the ability to save assets. So let's say, you know, when I was at Product Hunt, when I was building this, right, we would use the Product Hunt logo on a lot of memes, right? And this is a common strategy that Duolingo does, that a bunch of startups do, where you meme your logo. But, you know, I'm no longer at Product Hunt, so let's say we want to put Diddy on here, right?

Look out.

So you could kind of upload your own assets, you could do classics. And we also, if you're not sure what to upload, we give you a bunch of stickers too. And so these are just, right, Richard from Silicon Valley, Mudang, a lot of Mudang stickers. My God, whatever. So we kind of just want to make it as easy as possible for meme marketers and for marketers who want to try making memes but are unsure how to get started. So that's the whole goal. Make it as easy and fun and crazy as possible. And again, sorry to take up more time, but going back to ACP Funnel, the number one place I get feedback for ideas is community calls in our Slack. People are sending me ideas all the time. And there's this Paul Graham, the founder of YC, right? He has this thing about talking to your users. Well, talking to your community is like the number one thing, right? You got to talk to your community. All these cool ideas that I've gotten around here, like adding the classic memes, that was an idea from community. AI background removal. So much of this is from the community. So yeah, definitely recommend 10 out of 10. Start building the audience, building the community, finding ideas, and then go build some freaking products because in the age of AI, no code, basically anybody can do it. I'm not like a trained engineer. Anybody can do it at this point.

So yeah, yeah, no, totally, totally. I think also, um, uh, Jordan, I brought you up on stage.

Oh, Jordan Mix, the legend!

What's up, bro?

How you doing?

I'm good, man. How are you?

Good. I can't wait to get, uh, my hat in the mail.

I know, baby, it's shipping. It's shipped out.

I love it.

Um, how did you— how did you build it?

Yeah, so I used some no-code tools, a lot of Red Bull, and that's about it.

No Claude, no ChatGPT.

I used a little Claude for questions around AI stuff. And oh, I know you guys have used this tool, v0. Yeah, Vercel. I forget what it's the direct link. Vercel.

Yeah.

So v0 is really cool. You could just like build a prototype. It doesn't work, but like you could build the design for it. And then whether you're working with engineers or it just gives you something, you can do it in seconds. So that's how I got the initial kind of design for it. I was like, give me something retro, you know, Windows 95 looking. And it straight up like in 10 seconds had the basics of it. So super helpful.

That's sick.

Yeah, v0 is super powerful. It's like starting to replace Figma for me as far as like screens go.

Wow.

Um, just like to— yeah, it takes, it takes some, takes some practice to get the prompts right, and like you need that architecture mindset. That's why I use Claude and v0, um, to kind of like pair, get like the product description with Claude and then take it to v0 and try to like build the components out. Um, but yeah, we've seen some designers that at Late Checkout, um, and, uh, other people have done some incredible stuff on v0. So it's a prototyping wonderland out there. It is.

And I'm, I'm really bullish on what Vercel is building. Um, the founder is just like a true hacker's hacker. Um, and so I think v0 right now and v0 in like 5 years, or it's gonna be insane.

Yeah, it's crazy. It's wild.

Definitely recommend. Um, also, like, on top of that, if you're not ready to build software, information products for your community. You know, I have my book behind me, Memes Make Millions. Um, I've had courses, and, you know, the community helps a lot with that, with getting questions, ideas for, uh, what products to build. If you're not ready to build software, there's a lot of easier stuff to build that is still very high leverage, um, that follows, you know, the good old Jack Butcher, uh, What is it? Build once, sell twice model, right? You know, every time somebody buys a book, I'm not doing extra work, but it's going out there.

So yeah.

Yeah, I think one thing that you've done is just like you just have always shipped. You know, a lot of people like talk about shipping, but like you have shipped a mad amount of products. And like, I think you finally found this one that's like going to be super sticky. And kind of stay with you. And now all your other products are features of this like membership community. So it's like they used to be your product, but now they're more like features. And it's like Memes Make Millions is the book. You've got the Cyber Patterns is the letter. Like all of those things pack into like the, the C layer and become like a membership around Memes Make Millions and I saw you tweet the other day, it's like, like Coinbase is hiring someone for $200K and you, and like you said, like $200K is cool, but like memes make millions. So you're leaving like $800K on the table. It's just, it's just cool to see like you're sticking with this adage and like, you know, it's just becoming more and more real every day. Like, yeah, I believed it. You know, I've got the book over there, but just seeing that, I'm just like, I can't believe Jason can sling this tagline right here and have it hit.

So, dude, what's crazy is like, as you keep building your audience too, like, like last month was the biggest month for book sales and I published it, uh, 12 months ago. So like, it just keeps going, right? That's the power of compounding, uh, internet. Um, yeah, just keep shipping shit, man. Like, I, you know, there are plenty of failed products in my graveyard, like Greg has a line, it was like, uh, if your graveyard's not bigger than your like list of current products, you're doing something wrong. Something like that. But yeah, just, just keep your graveyard not bigger than your portfolio, I think. Yeah, yeah. And then the day, like, if you're somebody who really, um, like, I love making people in my community, my audience happy. So like giving them tools and, and fixing stuff and taking their feedback and like trying to make cool stuff for them. Makes me really happy. So I feel like I'm having a lot of fun. So it really is inspiring to like keep shipping stuff because I know now there's people using it. So it's cool.

Wow. Well, you know, for me, I think you said about the information about it, like for folks who are not on that bleeding edge, who aren't in Vercel or v0, like just like you said that you manifested this by taking your concept and putting it into a book, like you self-published that thing. Started talking about the book, and the book attracted people who bought it, consumed your ideas, and those people went over to the community. And now you're like, oh, now I'm interacting with these people, the ideas. And now to think that, like, if you'd said, uh, I'm gonna launch a product in 9 months by taking the people who read my book that joined a community, they're going to give me ideas on how I can launch a product that will be successful, people be like, no, no, no, you're supposed to have the idea now. You're supposed to know everything and build it right now out of the gate. Uh, that's the power of community.

I I've been waiting to write this post, but I really think there's gonna be an author to software pipeline, something of the sort. You know, we've seen it with James Clear, Atomic Habits, and then made a habits app. I think there's a couple others as well. And then, you know, but I think that's gonna become a big thing cuz it's a lot easier to write a book. Writing a book's still fucking hard. Sorry, sorry. I don't know if I'm allowed to curse here.

It's all good.

Writing a book's still hard, but building software is like next level. But also something to keep in mind too, as a little alpha here, is like power of Zapier. Everybody who signs up for my book is getting automated emails to go sign up for the product, right? For Memelord Technologies. Everybody who signs up for Memelord Technologies is getting emails to sign up for the book. Everything's going to the newsletter and then they get emails to sign up for my community. People who sign up for the community get access to the product. Like, it's, it's behind everything is just like 50 Zapier and Beehive automations that are just like, like a web, like, of insanity. So, uh, it all, it all works together. Um, and, and even in Memelord Technologies, my app, like, I have a tab for my book that goes directly to my book. Like, I'm going to be adding courses and stuff in there too. Um, so it all works in tandem. Whatever your niche is, the internet is big enough to find a bunch of weirdos who fuck with it, whether it's memes or whatever. Just stick with it. That's really at the end of the day, double down on what you're doing if you really love it. If you're having fun, stick with it. And don't be like one of those people just switching niches every time there's something hot. That would be my big advice there. Like, that's how people are with you for life. Yeah. Yeah.

You get caught with your niche down. Oh, damn.

That's good. That's fire.

Where's my shirt? Where's my shirt? Make it. I love it. That's wild.

Yeah.

All right. So what stage of growth do you think people should make an NBA jersey?

Oh my God.

I just saw there is a whole comment section. Sorry about that. Um, all right. Uh, oh, make an NBA jersey. Um, NBA jersey as soon as possible. I made this just on Amazon. Uh, and so I haven't figured out a way to like do dropshipping yet, but I'm going to be adding a shop and stuff. Um, other stuff. Uh, what about Makeover, Zapier? I recommend Zapier. I haven't used MakeMush. I just like Zapier. Um, yeah, do I have program experience? Um, I had a little data engineering experience, but never like too much around, you know, front-end stuff. I'm not like a designer by trade. I've just been kind of screwing around for a while.

And then look how you leaned into that though. Like, look at you go retro. Like, yeah, there's the design as output and there's your design mindset, which you brought to make this by using AI. Like, That's the unlock for me.

And then integrating all these within the current meme ecosystem. So like I said, everything is like all in the software. What's actually crazy is when you have software, you can kind of— it's your world. You get to build whatever you want. It's kind of beautiful. I'm working on a second book, right? When that comes out, you bet there's going to be a banner there. Right? Or, you know, next time I go stream, I'm gonna like connect them somehow, right? So when you build software, similar to building a community, it's your platform, it's your world. You get to kind of just do what you want and, um, connect it all. Um, so I definitely recommend giving it a try, whether it's building your own software or building a community. You get to build your own world on the internet. It's pretty fun. Any other, uh, last minute questions?

I think we're pretty good. We'll drop the link and we'll put it in the wrap-up post as well so folks can see it. Um, but you can— folks listening now or in the future, you can walk the path. You can get his book, you can join the community, you can, you can see how he's making magic happen. And that's really the DNA of the ACP product. So many people are unwilling to get started. Like, just build and launch what you can. Like Jordan said, Jason's just been relentlessly shipping, um, and every time you ship, you get better. Um, and every, every ship milestone is another piece. And if you, if you've been, if you've been working for like 6 weeks and you haven't shipped anything, you're not doing it right, but because you're just not moving fast enough to be learning.

Yeah, yeah, just keep, keep shipping stuff. Um, just like even just the small things, keep shipping. I also just added in that article there is about kind of how I use the ACP specifically. So definitely, yeah, if you want to see more about that.

But awesome. Cool, cool. Thanks, brother.

And we'll talk soon.

All right, see you, man. See you, Jason. Thanks, brother. Wild, right?

What a guy.

Just crushing though. Just, just watching it unfold. Um, the best part about the building piece and the community piece, like when I first met Jason, I was so impressed. I was like, hey, other people need to hear what he's building. And I introduced him to a couple, you know, folks. Um, Jim O'Shaughnessy, who's like a big, you know, I follow him on Twitter, and I was like, hey, we're not friends, but there's this kid, you gotta meet him. And they had a meeting and they're collaborating. And, you know, it was like a moonshot thing for Jason Levin. But the only reason I made the connection, because I saw Jason Levin was shipping and Jason Levin was like a person who was the right, who's qualified to talk, who would be an interesting character. But you don't get that. You don't earn that distinction unless you're actually making stuff happen.

Yeah.

So I'm so pumped for him. I got to ship it. I love it.

Before we jam on Roast, I'm going to answer this quick question from the Thought Alchemist. Um, yeah, first he's, um, they said, all right, so usually you build audience, then community, then product. How to build audience? Um, yeah, audience is around, I mean, you really just got to pick a niche and find a passionate niche of like-minded individuals and have an angle. Like Jason Levin, for example, like his was just memes, you know, and it's like, it sounds niche on day one, but then when you think about it, it's like, uh, it's ubiquitous. Like, everyone uses memes, memes go viral, memetic activity, etc. Like, you know, even your grandma has sent a meme probably, or has seen and laughed at a meme on Facebook. So it feels like internet niche, but it's really not. Another example I always use is this guy named Knees Over Toes guy. When I first saw that, I was like, this is insane. This guy like literally has like knees as a niche. Um, and then I thought about it and everyone has knees and now Knees Over Toes guy owns my knees and anytime I have knee pain I go like get his workouts or, you know, if I want to play basketball or, um, whatever, I'm just going to Knees Over Toes guy. Um, so yeah, I would say like pick the, pick the niche first and then just start talking about it. And you don't need to do like a systematic, like, audience, community, then product. Like, there's not some threshold. I would chip away at it, um, and build an audience, have a community offering, like a school page where you can like connect with people. Even if there's like 3 people in there, like, that's a mini community. And then you can just start— serve them up a product. Maybe that's a, um, a service to start, or a little infographic. And then you just start layering those things on. Like Jason didn't start with Memelord.tech, you know, he didn't start with a software app. And, um, yeah, so that's my quick feedback on that.

I love that. That's, that's awesome. And I think, you know, actually I was just having a live session. We do lives every, um, every week with new members. I just met a new guy who's doing some financial planning. He works in a restaurant group but has started a side hustle on sort of financial planning, um, and he's inside of a community. And the audience that he's using is the, is the support forum of the product that he's using to do the consulting with. So think about it for a second. That company is doing all the lifting on the marketing. They're trying to attract the right customers, bring them in, and get them to use the product. This guy has come in and said, listen, I don't—

I'm—

instead of hunting, gathering, trying to create my name, etc., I'm going to make a little home inside of the space where people are being brought in, and I'm going to be the intermediary for the people who are stuck between, uh, their desired outcome and the software. And I facilitate that arrangement. So it helps the software people. They're like, please be in my ecosystem, help my customers get them up to success. He's also like on the leadership council because he's a power user of the product as well, and he doesn't have to do any of that front-end work. So he's basically carving out a small audience out of this bigger audience where people are already gathering. And I say that because all of us live in a space where either we use software or we're part of those types of communities where you've been in those support communities, they're awful, right? You post, nobody answers, or you get an auto post response back, or it tells you to, to go read another article, etc. But he's capitalizing on that by bringing like the pers— the power of having a personality um, and knowledge inside that space makes him extremely valuable. So he was about to launch some products outside, and I was like, go, like, lean into this audience right now. Like, build— you need to refine that funnel and build more to be successful. Because I think that's— it's underrated. You don't have to— you don't have to build— you don't have to go zero to one on your own audience. Because we also— I mean, we talk about drafting off of other creators, etc., but there's real power inside that space as well. I don't know if you have any examples on that, Jordan, because I don't see any questions rolling in right now. So I'll bump them again.

Yeah, does anyone want to get roasted? Does anyone have an idea they're working on or a niche? Um, have it, have it a jam more.

Exactly. You can jump up here with us, so you can put it in the chat. Um, I could handle either way. Um, for sure. Jason's— my favorite example about Jason is we talk about, we see software products or someone launches something and we're like, that's amazing. And to think, to his point, he's an author who launched something. That's just mind-boggling. Like, that is the definition of what we're seeing at the intersection of technology and ideas, reducing, you know, time to value creation. For your audience is just wild. Super pumped for him. It just is a role model.

Totally. Um, I think, I mean, I can share, uh, a story, a story about a guy that I think, I think is interesting.

Uh, let's hear it.

His name is Jack, uh, Jack Fritz. I'll just share my screen.

Here real quick. Um, see, kind of behind the scenes for, uh, LC. For folks on the outside, these are my favorite meetings where Jordan's like, hey, I found this thing. It's always a piece of gold.

My, uh, my permissions are messed up right now. Um, so I'm not going to be able to share, but I'm going to send it over to me in the—

in Slack. I'll pull it up.

So it's this guy, his name's Jack. He's been building this app called Curiosity Quench for probably like a year, and it's all about like how to stop brain rot, stop scrolling, and start learning more. Um, so it's like replace endless scrolling with, with meaningful action, and he has these like mini courses. Um, on, on, uh, and it's really just like all around like TikTok. And so he's just been going, going viral recently by making these like really, really basic, um, reels. They're like static, like TikTok reels or Instagram reels, and there's like 4 images and it's kind of just like either or. It kind of goes back to like the meme, meme marketing. Um, let's see if Patrick can pull, pull one of those up.

Yeah, I'm working on it. Yeah.

Um, they're really just like 4 simple images, and it's— they're— he's just getting millions and millions of impressions, and he's downloaded— like, he just has had crazy, um, traction with, with these, these, uh, this like posting strategy. Another person who's been doing that really, really well is like BFF Trip. She's basically like created this like solo app and for like solo travelers and she's been posting reels and videos and has download— had gotten— has gotten like hundreds of thousands of downloads purely just off organic content. But then Jack, by, by like he, he's been posting all these, these reels and stuff. He built another software tool called PostBridge because he was about to sign up for Hootsuite, which is a social media posting tool, and it was like $100 a month. So instead of paying $150 a month because he needed like an upgrade plan, he built a competitor called PostBridge, and it's just dead simple, and he already has like $200 MRR. Off this new app. So now he has two softwares that he's building simultaneously, um, PostBridge and his Curiosity Quench. So, um, and it's, it's really like now they're both playing off each other because how he's growing Curiosity Quench is through content, and how he grow— how he posts the content is from PostBridge. So like his marketing and the story is all aligned So it's not like he's doing two different things. It's just like he's posting on Be a Post Bridge, getting impressions, getting downloads to Curiosity Quench. So he kind of has this like ACP funnel inside of both of his products.

That's so wild.

Yeah.

Oh my God. Oh, hey, Rebecca has a question for us about, um, about shipping as well. Okay, um, let's dive into that real fast.

Pull it up.

I'll stop sharing my screen so we have it. Oh yeah, BFF trip as well. Rebecca wants to know, so what do you mean by shipping? Also, what do you mean if we haven't launched in 6 weeks, we're not doing it right? Totally. Yeah, I know I'm not suggesting that you have to put the final product out there, Rebecca. Um, I think one of the key elements that we see inside Empire is the people who are actually creating and putting stuff up there, either to be roasted inside of our community or shipping it out to either their own community, their own list, etc. You just don't know until you, until you put something out there. Like, nobody can, nobody can give you feedback or tell you something works or doesn't work, or you need to change this or anything, if you, if you aren't actually putting something out into the world. So if you took what you're building from where you are today to your desired end state, uh, you probably, you may think of that as one project, but it's really like 50 small projects in there. And by some people call building a public, by taking those small unit steps with your audience, the people who follow you, the people in your space, like launch, give me feedback, let's go. You start building an army of people like Jason Levin, who's on his side, who's helping him make it better, who's help spreading the word, who shops when he goes there, who, you know, um, is like a testimonial. All of that adds up and you're building like a team of people on your side by doing it in public and making it happen.

I don't know if there's another way to think about that, Jordan, but, um, yeah, what we mean by shipping is like just putting stuff out into the world. You can ship a social post, you can ship a lead magnet, you can ship a community, you can ship a landing page, you can ship a product. Really just being out there and putting stuff out into the world to reduce your feedback loop. Um, so I'm gonna like take a step back. It's like, what, what are you building? Um, what, what do you— what, what are you at the 6-month our 6-week mark with?

Yeah, tell us, pop it in the chat, or if you want to come up on stage, let us know. I don't want to surprise you.

Yeah, um, no idea what community to launch yet, so I'm guessing, um, you don't know what, like, what, what niche, um, you're, you're building in. So I would say like that would be the first thing figure out. It's like, it's less about like, what community should I launch? And it's more, it's more about, uh, like, it, it goes back to like the old startup adage of like, are you building a solution looking for a problem, or do you have a problem in need of a solution? Um, if you're just looking to launch a community just because you want a community, it's probably like the wrong, the wrong way to look at it. It's like you should look at a passionate place that you have the right to win in. You have a really interesting overlap between what the market demands, what you're passionate about, and what you want to be doing, and then like playing in that intersection.

Mhm. Mhm.

I've been building—

pull it up—

building a brand marketing sentiment analysis application. But I think the community is different. Um, who, who is the target? Who's the target user? Um, yeah, would love to have you come up if you, if you want to, if you want to jam on it. Um, but my main question is, who is the target user? Um, for that, and I would strongly advise against having like all right, I'm building an application, but I'm building community for a different person. Like, that goes back to like what Jack is doing, um, all of his— he's doing multiple things, but the stories all stack up and they all, they all align. And that, that's, that's like absolutely paramount when you're first getting started, because if you're a little over here, a little over here, a little over here, you'll never actually hit like a flywheel effect. You you'll just always be like servicing this one, putting out all the fires, and then letting the fires roar over here and running over here. So if you have a brand marketing sentiment app, like I would say making a community for people that are using that application to serve them in like a deeper way.

Yeah, totally right. Like, so if you have designers and devs, some percentage of that circle is going to be wanting to use an app as the solution as opposed to a workshop or a protocol or a one-on-one piece, right? So like, oh, how do I find those people who use technology to solve this problem? That's like your audience, which is people who are designers and devs who use technology to optimize what they're doing. Your technology will probably fit into that flow. So how do you get into the space where those people are talking? And, you know, what are the software tools they use? What are they up to? What's their, you know, a simple question is, hey everyone, what's your stack right now? What are you building with? And people love to talk about their stack. So they'll come in and say, I'm using, you know, I'm using ConvertKit, I've got HubSpot, you know, whatever it is they're working with. And then to be like, oh, like, here's, you know, you could come back and say, oh, I would, you know, well, in 2024, uh, I could tell who you are, I could tell how long you've been doing this game by your stack, right? So 2024, these are the apps that we use. Here's the new stack, old stack, new stack. First of all, that becomes a meme, right? You can post that to community like, remember when? Because today we— but also it's a conversation point for you to show people like you're thoughtful about building with software. Like your community becomes people who are like trying to think about it. And then you end up like Jason did, kind of having a piece of software that helps those folks, you know, hey, in the DMs, this is what Jenny.ai did. They went into Facebook and started messaging people and trying to be helpful to people who were scholars and then were DMing them like, hey, we made something that kind of does this. Do you want to take a look at it? And they shared it with them and got feedback and carved out a small community. And then that community was the first 100 users of their product, and now they're up and running 7 figures MRR because they built it with the people. That's the feedback loop, right? You don't have to launch and then wait for people— like, people are not going to show up and want to engage with you now because you launched a product. It's making the product and building the product. We just saw with Jack, that is he's making it all happen because he's showing everything he's done. If we didn't know Jack at all, but it's like something popped up that said curiosity quenched, and you'd be like, ah, that doesn't mean anything to me. But for people in his network or sharing or showing what he's up to, the content he's made around building, it's just a— it's a magnet. You can't resist it. So, which is awesome. Um, BFF is another great one. By the way, you ruined like 2 hours of my afternoon last week. I'm not going back there, Jordan. So I clicked around and took a look at that, and we've had quite a few in that space. There's actually, um, uh, Nicole, who's, um, from New Zealand, who just joined Empire last week. She has a community of people who gather. Um, it's focused on young women that meet up in like local venues. You know, it could be painting, could be pottery, could be yoga class, could be something, but It's a, it's that plus a social experience, um, kind of started after COVID and it's just grown into this juggernaut for her. So it doesn't have to just be tech, it can also be, your community can be about bringing people together, um, for value as well. So there's a bunch of different ways to play the ACP, you know. Totally. Which I love. All right. Well, we'll go 5 more minutes if anyone does have a question. And Rebecca, we'll see you inside Empire if you've got any feedback for us, um, or we can dive more deeply in your software. It's a busy month, um, activities off the, off the hook with this sprint we have going on right now as people build.

Let me find Trip BFF. Oh yeah, yeah, it's an app to find trip friends to travel with.

Yeah, share.

Okay, all right, we got a question.

I need it.

Tool that helps manage the Gmails inside Notion. Turning emails into organized tasks. We're starting with a community and thinking about launching inboxing sessions.

Cool.

Yeah, do it. I'd say it doesn't need to be like a community, like Patrick talks about this a lot, like pop, like pop-up communities. Like it could literally just be like a Luma event. And, you know, like the villain is, you know, your inbox that has a gajillion things and you can never get to inbox zero. And even when you're at inbox zero, there's no, there's no real like control of like what you've read, what you've not read. You can mark on things unread or star it or put it in a folder, but it stays in that to-do list. If you want to pull her thing up, Patrick.

Uh, inbox.

So yeah, that's how I would start. Like, not necessarily like, um, like a huge community. Like, don't put a ton of time into the community. I would really just start with like a simple Luma event like this and just be like, yo, let's onboard you to the tool, you know. Just like, here's how we manage our email in Notion. Like, we already manage our life in Notion, So here's how we do it in, um, in Notion. Like, you could just show and bring someone up on, on stage or whatever and be like, yo, let's change your life. And you could just do these like power hours. I bet you would get like 10 to 20 signups every single time you did that. Um, and then just give them the community for free since you're already selling a software. Like, just let people connect over like productivity stuff. People love productivity, right? Like It looks like you have a ton. It looks like you guys have a ton of like reviews already too. Um, so like I would honestly just do that. That's how I would do growth going forward is like events like this. Be like, do you hate your inbox? Do you use Notion? If both are yes, you need to come to this event and I'm about to change your life.

Yeah. Do you have an inbox? Anybody? Anybody out there have an inbox? Talk to me. Um, yeah, I love this. I'm gonna stop the stream real fast so we can talk, but, um, yeah, that's wild. You know what's, what's interesting to me, what I've seen a lot of people do really successfully, um, aside from just an event like this, is you could run like that event like this. Maybe step 2, step 1 could just be, because I don't see an Instagram, like, uh, like having an account showing before afters of people, like before inbox, after inbox, right? Um, or going live. We've had a couple, um people in Fed Empire do a really great job, especially, um, female founders who seem to just crush Instagram. I don't know what the difference is, but they crush, um, going live once a week and being like, hey, I'm going to answer questions about this, and, or just go live. People see it happening live, and from there putting them into your funnel saying, hey, we'll give you a— here's a free resource on understanding how to take care of your inbox, and then also here's where you go. Like, I think An example would be, um, who does that really well? Zapier does that really well. Half the time when you search, like, how do I fix my Airtable with whatever, like, Zapier's put out content on how to, how to fix Airtable, how to do stuff. That result comes up before Airtable's answer comes up on Google search. Um, and so having like little playbooks or tidbits or content that people could be like, oh, how do I fix this? How do I do that? And then you could say, we do this, you know, inside here in BoxedInOcean. Um, it's just, it's SEO friendly. It could be content that you're putting up, like how to do X, how to do Y. And those people who are interested in solving those problems and are kind of DIYing it will eventually become folks who love your product. And then you just sell it. Yeah, totally. The best part about that is, and the reason why we talk about pop-up communities, um, is communities work. Like, it's my full-time gig here for Community Empire. There's a lot of people and answering questions and exploring things. It's not just help tickets. And so, uh, you don't necessarily need— if you've got a robust product, you don't necessarily need to have a community of people who hang out. Like, I don't know, I mean, I have a car. I don't hang out in the car community talking about my car while I also drive my car. Like, I need to do stuff. So, but you can have those pop-up moments where you say, hey, come in, let's jam, let's learn, let's celebrate new launch, let's do a thing. All of that is people loving on your product, learning about your product, and amplifying what you're doing. That community will give you new ideas. They'll celebrate what you have. Maybe they'll tell you that they want stickers, you know, like, I want those stickers, and you'd be blown away, you know. Um, I think it'd be pretty fun, uh, to be able to do that for them. Got something. Yep.

Yeah, this is cool.

I love it.

If you want more growth ideas, I want to build an empire, I would love, love to see you in there. Um, this is all we do. 24/7 and in the, in the community. So, um, Patrick, that's great. Just, just wanted to say, didn't elevate an idea, but this is fire for informing how we'll iterate. We call that iteration through osmosis. It's right there. You're just tangential to a lot of good stuff.

I love it. Like we were saying that today, right? We saw a new guy come in and says, hey, I have golf apparel. And the other guy's like, I've Oh, you used to run golf apparel? I was a professional golfer. Let's DM, let's do this, like, let's get on it. Like, that's the magic of Empires— conversations like these that inspire you and get you to take action. You know, when I see Jordan do something, I'm like, I could do that. I mean, technically, I don't necessarily feel that way. Jordan's the next level. But you can— like, that's the whole part of being in a place where other people are building like you, is these are people who are actually doing it, right? Like, trying to figure it out. Like, I watch someone on on a YouTube video, you know, juggle 17 balls and tell me they're going to teach me how. But it's not even my world. I want someone who's in it with me right now teaching me, sharing what they're doing, build together. Like, it's just a next level, next level experience. All the resources you need. So, and enough Patricks. If your name is Patrick, you're actually not allowed to join Community Empire anymore because we've got 6 of them. We've hit our Patrick's limit, but everyone else is welcome. Let's see, we got a question here as we wrap up here. You're welcome, Charisse. I love the product, it's gorgeous, by the way. All right, do you create a community? Oh yeah, here we go. Our daily is asking, if you create a community, how do you promote it outside Community Empire to build your audience? Um, well, really, community is sort of that second step in that process. Jordan, I know you're about to rip on that one. You know, it's like a carve-out of the audience, you know.

So yeah, I think like, you know, the, the community— like, if social media is like the nation, then your community is like your state, and then your products are like your neighborhood or your city. Um, so that's the, the analogy that I like to use, uh, for it. So I mean, like, how you would promote it— you can promote it inside Community Empire, um, of course. Um, and like, we give you all the tools to help you spin up membership businesses and use the ACP funnel. You get a free school being a Community Empire member as well, so, um, that's a massive value, um, to starting a community. But then, yeah, I would just promote it, um, very similarly to see— to how you promote like a newsletter on social media. You see everybody's like subscribe to my newsletter, blah, blah, blah. So I just create value on social media to create an audience and then let them know that this like micro community, um, exists and you get X, Y, and Z out of it.

I love that. You know, actually there was a— talking about school, if you're school friend, school familiar, there was a gentleman, and this is, this is the playbook, right? So he was inside school being helpful He fought his way to the top of the school points leaderboard by— excuse me— by giving lots of advice, by being super helpful. Sometimes he didn't have an answer, but he would connect people, um, or sometimes he just, you know, sympathized, like, well, that really does— that's terrible, I don't know how that happened, or can't help you. But just friendly person. But he was giving advice, and people— he became the go-to person to ask for advice. So people started tagging him when they had a question because he was going to be able to answer, or probably had an answer. He ended up creating a school community where he's monetized that group of people who are like, you solve my problem now, but you probably know 6 other problems I have that I don't even— I'm not even aware yet. I haven't run into them. He solves them for you ahead of time before they become friction. And he did that by being inside of an audience, being super helpful, and then creating a space where people could join a community and get even more value. Um, and it's a, it's a total no-brainer when you, when you think about it that way. You're sharing, like sharing is the new selling. You're sharing what you have, you're sharing what you know. Sharing other connections and people like, this is a person that I want to be around, that I want to follow, that I want to see. And if they make something, it's— I'm gonna like it because I've already interacted with them. I understand the reputation. I see what they're doing here. So, um, that's another way to kind of think about it for you. So it's so simple. When you— once you see it, you can't unsee it. It's pretty wild. When you look at what Jack's doing and you see how he's doing stuff in public, you're like I've been doing it wrong this whole time, going undercover, never telling anyone about my idea, building like only showing my dog and like my cousin who doesn't understand what I'm doing. And then I hit launch one day and nobody wants my product and I don't understand why. Those days are gone. Like there's no reason for you to build silently anymore. It's a— it's like a— you're literally decreasing the potential for your product, I think, if you're not willing to put it out there into the world at this point, you know, put it out there and get roasted, get the feedback. Um, all right, awesome. Well, it's been fantastic, Jordan. Hey, thanks for joining. Of course, always good to kind of see what's on your desktop, what open tabs you have. Um, some candy for the folks. Everyone else, I'll follow up with you after this if you have a question. I put the link for Community Empire in there. You're welcome to go ahead and submit an application. I'll look at every single one. And see if you're a good fit, if it makes sense for you to be here. As Jordan mentioned, not just 350 other builders who are here doing things like our sprint this month, but we have over a million dollars worth of software deals. So if you have— if you work on Notion, are you people who work on Notion? Maybe, Charisse. We have an incredible Notion discount, Airtable discount, Zoom discount, OpenAI discount, AWS discount, all the stuff's in here. So you save a ton on your stack right away, plus all the learning materials and everything else you need. So We're constantly building. It's a great way to come inside, level up on ACT with the course, and then put into practice, see, see where you get to. So we'd love to have you.

All right, amazing. Thank you guys.

Yeah, thanks everyone. Peace out. We'll see you, and I will post this up on YouTube soon. Stay tuned. See ya.